Aircraft: Most aircraft have a fine coating of soot on their surfaces, and pick up static charge. If static drains don't function, St. Elmo's fire is seen. Most reports of BL also include reports of St. Elmo's fire.
Chimneys: Soot on the surfaces, nearby or full lightning strikes.Phones: Balls reported emerging out of phone during thunderstorm. Carbon mic element.
Tesla coils: Tesla used gutta percha coated wire. That insulation contains soot. I and others, have produced balls in sooty smoke while combusting items with our coils. Higher wattage coils produce larger effects and can begin to produce persistance. I produced one with a 1" diameter that traveled outside the streamer radius while burning a stick with a 12/120 NST coil. Photography of balls produced by burning rubber on a coil show that the balls form about 1/2" above the tip of the flame, and are much brighter than ejected embers. The Corum's were able to get their balls to pass thru glass, but it required smudging the opposite side with carbon.
Fullerenes: Produced in an electric arc using carbon electrodes in an inert gas enviroment.
DC's case: The leaves at the tower base provide the carbon.I believe fullerene creation may be the mechanism for ball lightning. Corum's believe it to be a combusting carbon aerogel. Either way, you see the mix of carbon and electricity.
I just had a thought, fullerenes are known superconductors when properly doped. Carbon aerogels may do the same. They would create a magnetic field which would be somewhat ball shaped.(the connecting lines would form a torus) We may be seeing a combustion temprature superconductor that the magnetic lines are compressing into a tight centered torus that would look ball shaped. This magnetic field may also collect other carbon in the area, adding to the size of the ball. In my photography, the balls grew in size the further they went from the flame while being "pierced" by the streamer.
David Weiss----- Original Message ----- From: "DC Cox" <resonance@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
It is real. I've seen it routinely form under the "v" shape of a largeradio tower's guy wires prior to a powerful thunderstorm. The nearby leaves(fall) were all sucked up tightly against the tower as well suggesting an electrostatic origin. When the tower was regrounded to help prevent exxcessive lightning strikes the effect went away. No, it's not induced. A bit off topic though. Dr. Resonance
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